Cruel cuts

It's disgusting that every year up to 22,000 girls in the UK are at risk of being sexually mutilated in order to guarantee their "purity" when they marry. And up to 100,000 women have already been mutilated.

The practice is illegal but nobody has ever been convicted and only two doctors have been struck off for carrying out the procedure since 1980.

Somalian supermodel Waris Dirie, who was genitally mutilated as a child, is vehemently against the practice and the racist double standard that allows it to continue on such a massive scale.

"If a white girl is abused, the police come and break down the door" she says. "If a black girl is mutilated, nobody takes care of her. This is what I call racism."

The police and the government think that convictions will not achieve anything and that the best tactic is a softly-softly cultural approach, working with local community leaders to persuade families that the practice is barbaric and unnecessary.

It's hard to say if this policy is working. There is evidence that some communities are getting the message, but the fact remains that the number of girls being "cut" is still shockingly high.

It makes me so angry that so many innocent young girls, unable to stand up for themselves or resist their family's pressure, are being deliberately robbed of sexual pleasure in the name of some abstract notion of "purity" and family "honour".

The authorities may say they're doing everything they can to stamp out this repulsive ritual, but I'm just not convinced when they say so little about it.

If little boys were being routinely castrated, would there be the same half-hearted approach?

Pic: Waris Dirie
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I can't stop listening to: Bonnie Raitt's new album, Slipstream. She may be 62 but hey, that lady still rocks!

Girls at risk

It's appalling that a Nigerian woman had to flee Nigeria and seek asylum in Ireland to prevent her two daughters suffering genital mutilation.

Now, having been in Ireland for three years, she's threatened with deportation but she's been given another three weeks to make her case for staying.

The genital mutilation of girls is still traditional in Nigeria and other countries, and her husband's family were insisting Pamela Izevbekhai's two daughters, Naomi and Jemima, should undergo it.

This was despite the fact that her first daughter Elizabeth bled to death from the procedure at the age of 18 months.

She was so determined this would not happen again that she abandoned her well-paid job, comfortable house and relaxed lifestyle and fled to Ireland, where she had to endure a spartan existence in a single room.

She now has just over two weeks left to persuade the European Court of Human Rights she should not be sent back to Nigeria to put the girls at risk once again.

I find the whole situation incredible. Even though her husband is now against the practice, his family feel they have the right to tell the couple what to do. The procedure can be carried out by an unqualified person in unhygienic surroundings. And it's seen as quite normal to damage or destroy someone's sexual organs.

This disgusting ritual is still rife all over the world - it even takes place furtively in the UK - despite years of struggle for women's independence and for control of their own bodies and sexuality.

Even when governments claim - as Nigeria does - that they're opposed to the practice, the law is not enforced and a blind eye is turned to what goes on behind closed doors.

What Pamela thinks is in the best interests of her two girls is irrelevant - she's expected to bow to social pressures and get them 'seen to' in the name of tradition and dogma.

I sincerely hope the European Court supports her.

PS: April 6 2009 - The truth of Pamela's story has been challenged. Elizabeth's death certificate is said to be a forgery and some journalists are questioning whether the child even existed. Her original lawyers have withdrawn from her case and replacement lawyers are being sought.

PPS: Male circumcision can be just as damaging, even though it's still widely practised in the UK.

Photo: Pamela Izevbekhai (right) with her daughters Naomi (7) and Jemima (6)